A pain in the neck

This wouldn’t usually bother me but, of course, pain in the left side of my neck, following a left vertebral dissection, is potentially… um… a bit of a pain in the neck?

I did think about whether I should consult a medic, and talked to someone about it, but our thought processes went like this:

The dissection should have healed by now: could i have done it again?

Isn’t it more likely that I just slept on it funny or pulled a muscle?

I didn’t have any neck pain when I actually had a dissection

I’m on drugs that make my blood very slippery so it’s highly unlikely I’d stroke out even if I had ripped it again

Only two of all the medics I saw had ever seen a vertebral dissection before: my GP in a child and the person running the CADISS (vertebral dissection) drug trial. So generally calling someone is no use and I’d end up back at a hospital which I don’t really feel is probably necessary

The annoying thing is that I was supposed to have scan on Wed 5th as part of the trial which, I presume, will tell us whether the dissection is healed. But there was some kind of mix up,. So the appointment is cancelled and I’ve to wait a little longer. It’s a shame because if it has healed I can probably come off the warfarin, which I’m desperate to do, not least because my hair is falling out again (no one else would notice at this point, but brushes get filled awfully quickly). The warfarin isn’t fun: it has side effects such as that and it requires blood checks about once a week. Once I’m off it, all we have to do is the thrombaphilia test and, if that comes back negative then we are done. But, actually, now I have to wait again. And I’m not a very patient person.

Also annoyingly, I’d ensured the trial appointment was made a priority, so I’ve delayed flying back to spend a bit more time in Northern Ireland (before I go back to work on 11th). So my flight is late on Wednesday afternoon, and I could’ve gone today.